Friday Funnies

For Your Viewing Pleasures...

CELEBRITY MANSIONS

John Travolta

Halle Berry

Oprah

Oprah's got 14 bathrooms and 10 fireplaces in this $55 mil Montecito , CA estate.

J-lo & Marc Anthony

Arnold & Maria Schwarzenegger

Ashlee Simpson

Aaron Spelling

Eddie Murphy

Billy Joel



Will & Jada Smith

Rod Stewart

Hugh Hefner

Larry King

Brad Pitt

Avril Lavigne

Ryan Seacrest

Courteney Cox and David Arquette

Sylvester Stallone

Jerry Sienfeld

Howard Stern

Britney Spears

I just can't seem to find any time to post a thoughtful yet meaningless rant. Between the ridiculous Braxton Hicks contractions and my shortness of breath I find myself basking in every moment of rest I can possible get. Maybe tomorrow...

Plus one can never get enough Britney jokes,

If you ever want a divorce, I suggest...

remodeling a room in your house with your husband while pregnant.Whose idea was it to completely renovate one of our bathrooms?

Yep, that was me but the Chef agreed and I thought he was gonna be cool about it...
but he wasn't. Turns out he ABSOLUTELY hates doing home improvement type things.
Especially on his day off. I, however, do not mind, but being that fat ass pregnant chick that I
I am, I couldn't do most of the renovating. Which left this super unhappy guy...
After two months of wanting to kill each other we finally have THIS:




Was it worth it? Not a fucking chance.

Catcher Crazy Face & Chef's Widow watching the Tribe game on Sunday

Ok so my earlier post may have been a little harsh. It's just that I am getting to that point in my pregnancy where cleaning and picking up constantly is the last thing I want to be doing. Frankly I wish we could hire a maid because I am pretty much about to let this house go to shit. Bending over not only kicks my ass now, it also gives me more varicose veins. And those fuckers hurt bad.

This next month is gonna be tough. Being pregnant and chasing after a 'spirited' Catcher all day & NOT being able to drink a martini might make Chef's Widow go loco...

PS Just so the rumor mill doesn't go ablaze about the Chef's contribution to this family, know that he is probably the only man on earth who works 100 million hours a week and then comes home each night and cleans & organizes the fridge, kitchen, bathroom, etc...He also changes mad diapers and lets me sleep in till 8 if he doesn't have to go to work super early. I bitch, but it all comes from mad love.

Is there some reason at 8 months prego that I should have to sweep my entire house after my dear chef & his buddy track mud throughout it? Mud that came from the beer drinking mushroom foraging hike?

I didn't think so.

Going to a show tonight and then out with the BFF. Hopefully. Ms. AK is a little under the weather so we shall see. Hopefully this righteous babe will cheer her up...

Sunny Thursday

I'm not much of a consistent TV watcher however I am obsessed with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I am addicted. Tonight is the premiere of their brand new season which I am sure will be filled with awfulness and crude hilarity. To prepare I am not doing anything today during Catcher's nap other than watching some serious YouTube recaps of this brilliant show. I would like to share a few of my faves with you... If you can't handle the funny I suggest passing on the show.












The crack episode might be the funniest shizat I have ever seen.

Catcher preparing for the most awesomest holiday ever.

Corrupt Court Update***
The Chef got two points (bullshit) and we are now $700 poorer. It's so funny that we actually have less money living in Cleveland than we did in NYC. What the F is that about?

Pray for the Chef tomorrow as he has to go to court at 8 am for this. Hopefully the man won't bring us down...

I am turning into an exhausted mess. I'm acting like Britney Spears minus the erratic drug use and head shaving. I am hallucinating and I can't nap. I really do not understand where all my so called 'end of the road energy' is. You know what I mean, right? At least all you ladies who have had a baby in the belly for eight months do.

Apparently I am supposed to get this giant gust of nesting energy and so far I have the opposite. I sleep like shit and I know why:


1. Baby girl lives on my sciatic nerve. No matter which side I lay on, I get this shooting sever pain down my right leg that is so mind numbing I can't sit up. Seriously.

2. These assholes that sleep with the chef & I:

Potato somehow has turned into a human being and spoons me. He wraps his paws around my neck and pushes me to the side of the bed. Then he lick attacks me and once he falls asleep he snores like an overweight smoker. It's quite pleasant.

3. My fat ass. Now I know, I know, I'm not fat...I'm pregnant. I hear it everyday. The thing is though when you have a belly that looks like this:

there is absolutely no COMFORTABLE position to lay. Left side, right side, sitting up. They all blow.

54 days and counting. Do you think I can make it?

I just put Catcher to bed after reading 11 books. I usually limit myself to five but today I got a little crazy at the library and I took out all the Joost Elffers books I could find. If you haven't heard of dear Joost I suggest you check him or her (? who knows w/ a name like Joost) out...

They are great kid/adult books. Each story or tale is accompanied by pictures of fruit transformed animals. Totally great and fun to read to the boy. I have to read Dog Food every night or else he wails.

Now I am off to sleep. I just can't seem to get enough of it these days. Woe is me. 55 days away...

This is why I do what I do. This little crazy man who cracks me up 18 hours a day. What a goober.

The chef & I are the most unlucky couple in the world. Ever since we started dating we have had a notorious string of 'bad' luck. This 'bad' luck seems to hit us hard at least once or twice a year and then leave us alone so we think that our karma is realigned.

Last year, the day after our church wedding (a year ago from this past Monday) we hopped on a plane for our honeymoon in St. Barth's. Before we could even leave the country all of our honeymoon cash was stolen. That's right we (actually me) took $1000 on a plane and expected everything to work out well. It didn't. We had a layover in Newark and when we got to the fancy hotel that chef's parents had put us up in for the eve, I realized my wallet was gone. Needless to say our honeymoon did not start out as planned. Thank god for the chef's parents who immediately calmed both of us-I had never seen the chef so mad, I thought he was going to punch a hole in the wall-and then Western Unioned us cash for the trip.

This year, the night before our 1 year church wedding anniversary the chef gets arrested and taken to jail. That's right my friends, jail. For what? Well that's where it gets a little tricky and I get a little angry.

He & the boy were driving to his parents house when he went through a yellow light. My phone rings about five minutes later and it is the chef asking where his insurance card is. At this point I am naked and literally getting into the bath so his call does not make me the happiest wife. In the background I hear this cop say "I think we have a bigger problem here than your insurance Mr. Chef." The chef puts me on hold, comes back to the phone and then tells me that he is being arrested for driving under suspension. Long story short is that the chef had an outstanding ticket in NYC (big surprise) and it showed up on his record. Basically in the state of Ohio if you have an out of state unpaid ticket the officer can either be a respectable human being and let you know about your ticket or he can be a complete suburban cop asshole from North Royalton and suspend your lisense right there on the spot, arrest you in front of your two year old son, and take you to jail to post a $500 cash bond on the eve of your anniversary.

At the time, I thought it was comical. I mean between the chef and I & every other person that lives in NYC, the tickets unpaid could be infinite. I mean the average New Yorker who uses a car in the city probably gets a ticket at least once every two weeks. However, once I got home with my jailbird and I started researching what happened, we realized that this suburban cop asshole totally fucked us. I mean the chef's license wasn't even suspended until that eve. Now almost $1000 later & he has to go to court on Wednesday to pay more money to this power abusing suburban police department.

***Sidenote***All we had to do to get his license back was prove that he paid the tix and pay the state $30. That's right $30. So basically this prick of a man arrested my husband in front of my son for thirty dollars.

All in all I am not angry at the chef. It messed our week up pretty bad and it proved the fact that we are still the most 'unlucky' couple alive. But it also made me realize how much I still hate the suburbs. And cops. I just can't deal with abuse of power. Especially when you pull some shit like that cop did in front of the boy. I mean you gotta be such a maniacal ego maniac to arrest a father (who did not commit a crime) in front of his all knowing 26 month old. The problem is that the 'burbs get way too much money from the state so then it has to be dispersed and the 'burbs build up this super human testosterone driven police force. For chrissake, the police force in Strongville (where we happily reside) is almost as large as the city of Cleveland's police force. Does that make any sense at all? To put that into perspective check it out:

Cleveland has roughly 400,000 people living in the city. Strongsville has 44,000. Their police forces are close to the same size. But that's another conversation for another day.

Enough already. I have vented. Now I must go enjoy the Cleveland's Children Museum with the chef & the boy. Happy Sunday y'all! Be sure to check out train wreck Spears this eve on MTV. Apparently good 'ol Brit Brit is the opening lip syncing act.

Ciao. Ciao.

This week has been fucked and I really don't wanna relive it by writing a long ass post about it. So I'm not going to. I am gonna leave work and go home and take a bath while I can. I am going to give myself a pedicure and drink a glass of sparkling (grape juice, that is) and I am going to try and forget that I weigh 165 lbs, 11.8 stones to you British folk, and that I still have 2 more god awful months to go before my baby girl pops out. It's hot and I am bitchy. God bless the chef for not leaving me.

It's been a long holiday/anniversary/birthday weekend. I am really still recovering from all of the unexpected and chaotic events that took place between Friday & Monday. At some point today I plan on sitting in front of this beast of a computer in hopes of getting some shit out.

Until then I will leave you with some lovely pictures of my not so secret boyfriend. The man before the chef....

Friday Funk

Thirteen Things That I Just Can't Seem to Get Done

1. Call this guy. (Above)
2. Unpack from vaca.
3. Finish both bathroom remodels (that way I can post all the hilarious pics of the chef and I laying tile while trying not to kill each other).
4. Figure out how I am going to decorate baby girl's nursery without going crazy in a sea of bubblegum pink.
5. Post on any of my three (non paying) blogs.
6. Alone time w/o the boy, w/o the chef, & w/o the dogs. Especially Potato who has recently turned into that ball crazy dog in the movie Spanglish. If you haven't seen it, rent it, it's great and it's about a chef.
7. Put the chef's most recent press in his portfolio. This would literally take 5 minutes. Which I haven't seem to have had since we have gotten home.
8. Buy the chef an anniversary present. Our one year (church) wedding is on Sunday and I don't have squat for ideas.
9. Make my best friend a CD for her birthday which is tomorrow.
10. Shower. It's been about five days. I know. Gross.
11. Give Potato an itch shampoo bath. Ever since we got back his rash has been making him insane.
12. Plant the gardenia (I think?) plant Ruth cut off from her tree in FLA.
13. Make out w/ the chef. It's been awhile. Plus he has wine tastings every night (yes that's what chefs call getting drunk) and I can't stand the smell of the vino while prego.

The chef did an interview over at Cleveland Foodie, a local blog out of Cleveland. Check it out.

Congratulations Franny's for your amazing 2 star review in the NY Times. You deserve it. Your pizza deserves it. I miss you dearly.
I remember my first trip to you, Franny's. My bill ended up being $140 (all pizza except 2 cocktails) and I didn't even blink. Living a block away from you may have broke our bank but it gave our tummy's the best presents of yummy pizza and delicious small plates ever. The chef's widow and her chef miss you. Hell even the boy appreciated how amazing you are.

FIRE IT UP Andrew Feinberg, Francine Stephens and their daughter, Prue, at Franny’s.

By FRANK BRUNI
Published: August 29, 2007

ALMOST from the moment it opened in 2004, Franny’s had followers so ardent that they seemed to be willing themselves into their swoon over the place. Their unfettered enthusiasm was one of several reasons for skepticism.

Pasta with mussels.

Another was their ZIP code: many lived near Franny’s, which is in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn, and you know how Brooklyn boosters can be about their restaurants. Football fans who show up on sub-zero days with bare chests and painted faces have more perspective.

And it was hard to fathom their passion when they had such difficulty making the food sound special.

What, you’d ask, did this mecca for the modern epicure serve?

Crostini, they’d say. (Yawn.) And cured meats. (How transgressive!) Salads, too. (Heart palpitations commence.) And, and, and ... pizza.

So was Franny’s essentially a glorified pizza parlor? For those outside Brooklyn, did it really warrant a water crossing?

To the first question the answer is no; to the second, an emphatic yes.

Other restaurants have honorable pies, admirable lettuces or noteworthy salumi. But take it from a cranky Franny’s doubter, now a besotted Franny’s believer: not many do all three with as much joy and distinction as Franny’s.

Besides which, Franny’s does more. In June it reinstated pasta dishes on its menu. A few had been there in the beginning but were quickly jettisoned, because Franny’s chef, Andrew Feinberg, didn’t think he’d mastered them.

Now his kitchen has new equipment, while he has new confidence. So it’s pasta once again, and the rigatoncini with peppery pork sausage and sweet cipollini onions will have you hoping it’s pasta forever.

The lengthened menu makes Franny’s feel more fully formed, though you could subtract the pasta and still be left with plenty to savor and celebrate. Even in this era of Greenmarket reverence and food-miles shame, not many restaurants put as high a premium on seasonality and freshness as Franny’s does.

Artisanal pizza may be all the rage, but it’s the rare pizzaiolo who spreads dough thin enough and gets a brick oven hot enough to produce the gorgeous blisters like those on Franny’s best pies. And the restaurant’s soppressata has a suppleness that would make Armandino Batali blush.

Franny’s simplicity is deceptive. The restaurant finds transcendence in dishes and genres that wouldn’t seem to yield so readily to invention or open the door to so much pleasure.

For a Franny’s crostino no mere caponata will do. The crostino I had on a recent night was topped with porky, fatty pancetta — cured in the basement, along with the soppressata — and a house-made peach butter that simultaneously amplified the meat’s richness and provided some sweet relief from it.

A clam pizza at Franny’s isn’t one of those clumsy pies studded with shells that force you to embark on an odyssey of deconstruction and reconstruction.

The clams have already been liberated and placed on a thick amalgam of clam juice and cream — a doubly clammy whammy. If you ever loved a bivalve, you owe yourself this romance.

Mr. Feinberg owns Franny’s with his wife, Francine Stephens, for whom the restaurant is named. And although Franny’s has plenty of polish — a sophisticated Italian wine list, a manicured garden out back, a long mirrored brick wall more urban-chic than rustic — it retains a certain mom and pop soul, though the mom and pop in this version are notably young and idealistic.

Ms. Stephens is 35, Mr. Feinberg is 32, and they have a year-old daughter, with a sibling en route. The couple clearly want Franny’s to be an open-hearted, accessible place, and to that end there’s not a menu item over $17. And the restaurant doesn’t take reservations.

This policy creates predictable chaos, but it also seems to encourage a diverse crowd: families with small children early in the evening, tattooed hipsters later on. They can drop by on a whim and have the same chance at a table as anyone else.

Franny’s has its vanity. Turn over the menu and you’ll learn the provenance of not only the restaurant’s organic ingredients but its conservation-oriented energy supply (“35% New Wind and 65% Small Hydroelectric”).

I didn’t need to be told in writing that milk from Evans’ Farmhouse Creamery is “rich and creamy just like Mother Nature intended before homogenization.” I could taste its splendor in the fantastic fior di latte gelato on Franny’s brief list of desserts.

Several of those desserts — the cannoli, the chocolate sorbet — are underwhelming, as are a few of the dishes on the menu’s “small plates” and “plates” sections, where the crostini are found and the salads predominate. Although I loved the sulfur beans and salsa verde with wood-roasted octopus, the octopus itself could have been more tender.

You may not even encounter this dish. Franny’s menu seems to change almost hourly, reflecting the real value Mr. Feinberg and his chef de cuisine, Joshua McFadden, place on using the best ingredients they can rustle up at a given moment.

Wood-roasted eggplant replaces raw zucchini in a salad with pine nuts, purple onion and mint. Shell beans arrive just as wax beans depart.

Mr. McFadden arrived this year, having worked at Franny’s in the early days and then left for other restaurants, including Momofuku Ssam Bar and Lupa. Ms. Stephens and Mr. Feinberg said Mr. McFadden’s experience at the latter restaurant is partly why Franny’s can now do pasta right.

Right, but not flawlessly. A pork ragù in one dish was slightly gummy, and the restaurant’s apparent determination not to overcook noodles leads to undercooking them at times.

But the carbonara sauce on top of al dente bucatini was almost ideal, neither stinting on eggy richness nor turning the bucatini into a gluey mess. Equally on target was the saltiness of pasta alla chitarra with butter and bottarga.

Franny’s earliest supporters weren’t impulsive. They were prescient, and they’re going to have to keep making room for more recruits to the religion.

Franny’s

**

295 Flatbush Avenue (Prospect Place), Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; (718) 230-0221.

ATMOSPHERE A brick-walled room with an open kitchen and room for about 50 leads to a verdant warm-weather garden.

SOUND LEVEL Loud.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Soppressata; pork cheek and beef tongue terrine; vegetables with tonnato sauce; green, romano and wax beans with ricotta salata; eggplant with Parmesan; butter lettuces with radish and mint; rigatoncini; bucatini alla carbonara; chitarra with bottarga; olive oil and sea salt pizza; clam pizza; vanilla panna cotta; fior di latte gelato.

WINE LIST Italian and varied, most under $50. Some interesting house cocktails.

PRICE RANGE Appetizers and small plates, $6 to $16. Plates, pasta dishes and pizzas, $8 to $17. Desserts, $7 to $8.

Only in Cleveland would there be a rally in support of dog executioner Michael Vick. Only in Cleveland would The Plain Dealer print an article promoting it.

In case anyone forgot I thought I would sum up a few of Michale Vick's 'non existent' past offenses & incidents:

• In 2007, Michael Boddie, his father, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that around 2001, Michael Vick was staging dogfights in the garage of the family's home in Newport News and kept fighting dogs in the family's backyard, including injured ones which the father nursed back to health. Boddie said his son had been urged to not engage in the activity, but continued. He stated "This is Mike's thing. And he knows it." ^[17]

• In early 2004, two men were arrested in Virginia for distributing marijuana. The truck they were driving was registered to Michael Vick. The Falcons coach Dan Reeves recalled that he lectured Vick at that time on the importance of reputation, on choosing the right friends, on staying out of trouble for the good of his team. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Reeves as having told Vick: "You are an Atlanta Falcon...Whatever you do is going to be a reflection on all of us, not just you."^[18]

• On October 10, 2004, Vick and the other members of his party were at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport on their way to board an AirTran afternoon flight to Newport News, Virginia. While they were passing through a security checkpoint with Vick, a security camera caught Quanis Phillips and Todd Harris picking up an expensive-appearing watch (either a Rolex or a fake) which belonged to Alvin Spencer, a security screener.^[19] After watching the theft on a video tape, Spencer filed a police report. However, he claimed that Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, known as the Falcons "fixer", interfered with the investigation.^[18] It took six days for Spencer to get the watch back, according to the Washington Post.^[19]

• In March 2005 a woman named Sonya Elliott filed a civil lawsuit against Vick alleging she contracted genital herpes from Vick, in the autumn of 2002, and that he failed to inform her that he had the disease.^[20] Elliot further alleged that Vick had visited clinics under the alias "Ron Mexico" to get treatments and thus he knew of his condition. On April 24, 2006 Vick's attorney, Lawrence Woodward, revealed that the lawsuit had settled out of court with an undisclosed amount.^[21]

• November 26, 2006 - After a Falcons loss to the New Orleans Saints in the Georgia Dome in apparent reaction to fans booing, Vick made an obscene gesture at fans, holding up two middle fingers.He was fined $10,000 by the NFL for his obscene gesture, and agreed to donate another $10,000 to charity. ^[22]

• January 17, 2007 Vick surrendered a water bottle which had a hidden compartment to security personnel at Miami International Airport. "The compartment was hidden by the bottle's label so that it appeared to be a full bottle of water when held upright," police said. Test results indicated there were no illegal substances in the water bottle and Vick was cleared of any wrongdoing.^[23] Vick announced that the water bottle was a jewelry stash box, and that the substance in question had been jewelry. ^[24]

Obviously Michael Vick is an amazing human being and a fantastic role model. Not only should he get probation but he should be paid millions more for all the press he & the NFL are getting.

Actually, I really think he should be locked up with the 53 pit bulls that are about to be euthanized because he raised them as aggressive killing machines.


PS. These are pictures of Vick's dogs. Graphic, I know, but maybe they will open some people's eyes to the monstrosities of his crimes.

Honestly I am so freakin' tired from our fantabulous vacation that I may very well need another one. I need to get bloggin' again both here and at The Nest but tonight is not going to be the night for that. At least not right now. Maybe late night after I make myself a very large mint (from my garden) ice tea.

So I was gonna leave the chef for Johnny Depp but...he's just not that great of a cook, and girl's gotta eat!

Riding the teacups be back on Tuesday....

The Craziest Catcher Alive

This kid is too hilarious. His new thing is whenever I have my camera pointed at him, he stops, poses, and blinks (?) for the camera. What a maniac. I love him.

Happy 49th Birthday Madonna!

As a young girl I rocked out to True Blue like it was going out of style. I sang Like a Virgin at the top of my lungs in the shower when I still thought a virgin was Jebus' mom.
In my teen years, I turned to Madge for sex advice. Probably not the smartest or non sluttiest move but hell she was my own mother's idol, so why shouldn't she be mine?

Today, the most famous woman in the world turns 49. Unfuckingbelievable. I feel like she was 20 three years ago. I really feel like an old hag.

Happy Birthday Madonna. Thanks for teaching me about bisexuality, adoption, yoga, fingerless gloves, and fishnets. As Homer Simpson would say "Keep on a Rockin'".




In unrelated (actually blood related) Madonna news...

On Top Chef last night, two competing teams had to throw together a restaurant, decorations and all, in 24 hours.

What you may not have noticed, because he was never identified, was that one of the patrons was designer Christopher Ciccone (brother of Madonna, of course, who is incidentally celebrating her 49th birthday today).

We think Christopher Ciccone should appear as a judge on every episode, because, like Simon Cowell, Ciccone does not mince his words when it comes to judging what's put before him.

First the decor:

CHRISTOPHER: The chef should know better than to put a scented candle on the table. (putting it on the floor and covering it) And it's dead now. And I need a new napkin.

Then the food:

CHRISTOPHER: It wasn't the best lamb. The meat wasn't cooked properly. I thought it tasted like metal.

DALE: Like metal?

CHRISTOPHER: And if that's a vegetable medley, I'm a monkey.

DALE: I will let miss Sara know.

Top Chef needs to be shaken out of its stupor a little bit, and a biting, straightforward critic like Ciccone could be the perfect ingredient.